Joseph Barton Elam Jr.

Joseph Barton Elam Jr. (June 1, 1878 - October 24, 1935), was a politician, businessman, and journalist in his native Mansfield in DeSoto Parish in northwestern Louisiana.
Biography
Elam was the son of the former Mary Elizabeth Stewart and Joseph Barton Elam Sr., a lawyer who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives, as Speaker during the American Civil War, and thereafter in the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana's 4th congressional district.
Elam graduated from Sewanee University in Sewanee, Tennessee. He worked as a journalist in Chicago, Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri, and Oklahoma, before he returned to Mansfield, where he studied law privately and organized the DeSoto Abstract Company. He founded the newspaper, the Mansfield Progress, which merged with the Mansfield Enterprise, of which he became the editor. On June 25, 1912, he married the former Margaret Taylor, daughter of Johnetta Morgan and James Taylor of Nashville, Tennessee and Cleburne, Texas, respectively. Their children were Joseph Barton III (born 1914), Johnetta (born 1915), Mary Stewart (born 1917), and Margaret Taylor (1919-1977).
After her husband's death, Margaret Taylor Elam, moved her children to Baton Rouge so they would be near Louisiana State University. Their daughter, also named Margaret Taylor Elam, married the attorney R. Harmon Drew Sr. of Minden, whom she met at LSU and who was later a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1972 and 1978. One of their three children, Elam's grandson, is Harmon Drew Jr. of Minden, a judge since 1998 of the Louisiana Circuit Court of Appeal for the Second District, based in Shreveport.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu